Since its founding as Japan's first fire insurance company in 1888, Sompo group has a history of growing by providing solutions to changing social issues through insurance. In recent years, we have continued to work on solving social issues through our main business, such as making a full-scale entry into the long-term care business to face the social issues of low birthrate and population aging.
In addition, regarding CSR initiatives, with the participation in the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, we have a wealth of achievements as a CSR pioneer, such as collaboration with stakeholders such as environmental NPOs and active participation in sustainability-related organizations.
In addition to these achievements and strengths, we will utilize our qualities as a platformer, such as a“Theme Park for Security, Health & Wellbeing” with diverse businesses, abundant real data generated by each business, networks with stakeholders, and diverse human resources.
Under the new Mid-Term Management Plan, we place “SDGs in business management” which is to pursue the creation of economic value and social value by addressing social challenges through core businesses, as a new management foundation to deliver the Group's purpose. In promoting this, we will use the PDCA cycle, incorporate the social challenges the Group addresses, strategies, and actions into the management framework by setting materiality and KPIs, and will communicate and appeal the outcomes while making them objective by speaking the universal language of SDGs. In SDGs in business management, we will make the maximum use of our achievements and strengths in contributing to SDGs through core businesses and the credentials of platformer driving social transformation, and aim to become a "partnership" platformer for innovation and value creation.
SOMPO’s Materiality
After holding extensive discussions on which social challenges to address and what kind of value to provide based on the SOMPO Group’s strengths and resources, we identified Seven Materialities as key issues for fulfilling our Purpose.
In addition, we analyze our materiality once a year and confirm whether changes are necessary based on changes in social challenges and the Group's business strategies as well as requests from our stakeholders.
Materiality Identification Process
[STEP1] Identify social challenges
We have comprehensively identified social challenges that are relevant to the SOMPO Group based on international guidelines such as GRI standards, ISO 26000, and the United Nations Global Compact.
By matching the social challenges identified with SOMPO's strategies and actions to fulfill our Purpose, we identified social challenges that are highly important for the Group.
[STEP2] Prioritization
For the social challenges identified in STEP 1, we evaluated and prioritized their importance by evaluating their degree of impact on stakeholders and degree of importance to the SOMPO Group.
[Importance Evaluation Criteria]
- Degree of impact on stakeholders: Evaluated the SOMPO Group’s degree of impact on stakeholders by sending ESG investment questionnaires to investors, experts, and portfolio companies and engaging in dialogue with NGOs and other stakeholders.
- Degree of importance to the SOMPO Group: Evaluated degree of importance to the SOMPO Group by assessing the positive and negative impacts on the Group’s management strategy and business activities.
[FY2023 Social Challenge Map]
Dialogue with stakeholders
We believe that stakeholder engagement is an important activity for producing greater results by identifying social challenges and building relationships of trust and collaboration.
When reviewing our Materialities in 2021, we discussed with Emiko Nagasawa, Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) Deputy General Manager* of the SDGs Headquarters, and Masaru Arai, Chair* of the Japan Sustainable Investment Forum, about what stakeholders expect and demand from us today, the appropriateness of our Materialities and KPIs, and how we can further advance them by disseminating them within the company.
- Titles are those at the time of the discussion
[STEP3] Materialities and setting KPIs
We organized and integrated the priority social challenges identified in STEP2 to determine how to incorporate them into our management strategy and systematized them into Seven Materialities as key issues for fulfilling SOMPO’s Purpose.
By setting KPIs for each Materiality and incorporating them in the promotion plans of each LOB and company, we have established a highly effective PDCA cycle that enables us to visualize the progress of initiatives and identify issues.
Management-level discussion and approval/reporting process
After discussion by the Managerial Administrative Committee (MAC), the decision was approved by the Group COO (Director). The MAC proposal was reported to the Board of Directors.
